The List: 8 Mar 1991 (Issue 143)

I Sexual Chemistry Brian Stableford (Simon & Schustcr £13.99) Don‘t be fooled by the title: these ‘sardonic‘ science fiction short storiesare not so much to do with sexual chemistry as with the murky world of genetic engineering. But. of course. along with birth and death. sex is pretty important in the grand scheme of things. Or so I‘m told.

Brian Stableford. one of Britain's most respected historians of imaginative literature. sets out ‘to explore the more intimate human consequences' of the genetic revolution. The tales are lucid. darkly humorous and wonderfully inventive; and. unlike a good deal of SF. the standard of writing is as high as the imaginative ability. The author‘s economical style allows him to convey whole lives (some as long as 3289 years) within a few pages.

Allow yourself to be seduced and fascinated by the age of Neo-Post-Ultramodernism. and prepare to be humoured and stimulated en route. (Richard Goslan)

IS IT AN ALIEN CHINGER? IS IT A U.F.0.?

we don‘t learn from history. It is. ‘

therefore. through books such as ,

Anton the Dove Fancierthat the l

memory remains green. | Now a reporter with Newsweek. |

Bernard Gotfryd has set down his '

childhood and adolescent memories

of living in Nazi-occupied Poland.

His superbly sketched characters

and their testing circumstances

families trying to maintain some semblance of normality throughout the suffering. From dealing with the effects ofinsensitive restrictions such as a ban on Jews owning musical

of the deportation ofone member of a family. all aspects oftheir persecution are here.

This is neither a resentful nor an embittered collection ofstories — Gotfryd is just as capable ofshowing instances ofcompassion and humanity within the enemy— nor does it glory in any sort of martyrdom. Without resorting to either sensationalism or sentimentality the author manages to recall those terrible events so vividly that hopefully. generations later. we will learn something. (Wendy Robertson)

’o steel-rot-busting-romp’— THE TIMES

At last! The long-awaited sequel to BILL, THE GALACTIC HERO by one of science firtion’s most inventive and popular writers.

Somtow is a writer of many talents, and MOON DANCE is his biggest and best book to date!”

- Dan Simmons, author ofCARRION COMFORTS

£ l4.99 hardback

“T.M. Wright is more than a master of quiet horror. . .

He can convey more menace and terror in a single sentence than many writers can achieve in a page.”

— Ramsey Campbell

£3.99 paperback

Herman Landshoff for Junior iazaar, August 1945.

‘Appearances’ by Martin Harrison (Jonathan Cape, 235) is perhaps the first work of its kind to challenge the assumption that fashion photography is, due to its artificiality, a second-rate slilted performance art. In a careful exploration of the genre he examines social, historical and political meanings, concluding that, in Western culture, femininity itself is a construct-therefore fashion